


The Wolves

by hubrisandwax



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Depression, M/M, Purgatory, discussions about feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-30
Updated: 2013-04-30
Packaged: 2017-12-10 00:23:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/779672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hubrisandwax/pseuds/hubrisandwax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“I’m sorry, Cas. I wasn’t there for you when you needed me most.” Dean laughs bitterly. “I can add that to the long list of things I shouldn’t forgive myself for.”</i>
  <br/>
  <i>“Why shouldn’t you forgive yourself, Dean? Surely you’re not beyond redemption,” Cas says quietly.</i>
</p><p>Dean and Castiel are trapped in Purgatory (along with Benny). Dean realises some things in the long hours spent in silence and tries to talk to Cas about them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Wolves

**Author's Note:**

> Title by the Bon Iver song of the same name. You can listen to it [here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YgjZ4oPrj4).

Purgatory tastes like death.

The air is thick and cloying, the scent of earth and blood heavy on every breath as they curl down Dean’s throat and over his tongue. It reminds him of the stench of a fetid wound. Everything exists in muted hues of grey and brown, the world an aged photograph desaturated to cooler tones, crimson splashes as he beheads enemies the only differentiation in colour in this stark world.

Even the blood turns russet eventually.

Dean no longer knows how long he’s been here. Days have turned to weeks, weeks to months. Time doesn’t take definitive shape as they avoid leviathan and search for the portal and destroy anything that dares to cross their path.  _Time_  loses meaning beyond a human construct designed to organise. There's no use for it in Purgatory as night bleeds to day and back to evening in relentless cycles.

Now that Benny and Cas have stopped being dicks to each other, the three of them have formed a cohesive trio. There’s a mutual understanding between Benny and Cas that protecting Dean is the most important task, no questions asked, so they’ve taken to alternating guard duties. Either Benny or Cas will walk ahead while the other remains back with Dean. They communicate with glances and hand signals, never out of sight but always a good few yards ahead. It had pissed Dean off, at first - the babying, the vulnerability – until Benny eventually said, “You’re the only ticket out for the both of us, brother. Stop sulking and accept our damned help.” Which had put it in perspective. 

Dean and Benny catch their six hours every night while Cas keeps vigil - a silent sentinel guarding his charge. Dean finds he needs more sleep in Purgatory without the constant stimulants he consumes back in the Real World. His mind is clearer than it has been in years, no longer fighting post-narcotic hazes or liquor-glazed realities. Everything is clean, pure; the air – despite the stench – is unpolluted. There is no technology to be preoccupied with, no deadlines to meet, no lives to save except for Cas and Benny and his own. 

No younger brother to constantly care about.

He still worries about Sam, of course. But he’s not _there_. He’s back in the Real World, a setting that feels so disconnected from _now_. Dean has spent long silent hours thinking over the last few years of his life, Benny’s breathing and the crunch of twigs underfoot the soundtrack to his introspection. He’s spent most of his life running from his demons, but in Purgatory, one can do nothing but face them. It’s a matter of accepting them - of realising that you’ve committed wrong and that you’ll make an effort to absolve in the future - as opposed to letting them destroy you. 

Prior to Purgatory, depression constantly trickled over his psyche like an old, familiar friend who frequently destroyed him. Its cruel breath fluttered across his mind, injecting poison into his conflicted thoughts, coaxing him out of his mediocre plateau of numb contentment. _“Come back to us,”_ the feelings taunted, _“We’ll always be there. It’s easy to be enveloped back into the darkness, to not care about anything; to be so low you reach a high. It’s stronger than anything you’ve felt in a while.”_

Prior to Purgatory, Dean felt as if he was drowning in melancholia. He never wanted to submit; to sink as his father did. He felt as if he was fighting towards the surface, but instead he was merely flailing about in the current, occasionally reaching the glimmering happiness that was the surface before being pulled under again. It all seemed an immeasurable distance away and he couldn’t identify what was hindering him. The pressure was suffocating.

Now he’s hoping he’ll pull himself free and reach the dappled sunlight that is the fleeting promise of joy, hoping he’ll be able to take a gulping lungful of air without the threat of depression lingering over his head, hoping to sever all ties to past demons and start anew. If he makes it out of Purgatory alive with Benny and Cas, Dean has made a promise to himself that he’ll keep fighting, keep trying to work until he actually accepts (or maybe even likes) himself.

Small steps, though. He’s accepted his demons – he’s faced them head-on and realised that they’re there. Now he’s dealing with them.

Next is talking to Cas.

Dean feels responsible for Cas’s actions back before the leviathan ‘killed’ him. He finally accepts that he was partially to blame for Cas’s downfall, in short, and he wants to make amends. First is getting the angel out of this goddamn hellhole. And while they remain here together, alone, with ample opportunity to discuss feelings, Dean believes he owes it to Cas to try and talk to him. Perhaps then – and only then – can he alert Cas to the other epiphany he’s had while here. Something that has been building for a long time, but that Dean has been too impervious to realise. It took all the events leading up to Dean’s rediscovery of Cas as Emmanuel for him to recognise his feelings, and his time alone in Purgatory to accept them.

He’s in love with the goddamn angel.

However first he has some other shit to sort out with Cas. So far, though, he’s been unsuccessful.

He’s tried to address his implication in Cas’s actions when Cas and he have been partnered, but Cas simply beckons Benny over and requests that they swap positions. And again, when Benny is hunting for food, but Cas just ignores him then, too, peering off in to the distance, maintaining watch. It’s driving Dean fucking crazy.

Eventually, after six futile attempts at engaging Cas, Dean decides he’s had enough. As Cas raises his hands to gesture to Benny, Dean’s fingers form loose manacles around Cas’s wrists, preventing the angel from pulling away. Cas just stops, brow furrowed, eyes glittering in the dull sunlight as it shafts through the trees and plays over his face.

“Stop, Cas,” Dean says, releasing Cas’s arms and walking ahead a few paces. “We need to talk. No more of this avoidance bullshit.”

Cas moves to walk beside Dean, squinting at the taller man’s face. “I have nothing to discuss.”

“C’mon, man, don’t give me that crap. I know what it’s like. I’ve done things I’m not proud of, too. Hell, you’ve seen me at my worst.” Dean balls his hands in to fists. “I want to know how you are. Where your head’s at.”

The angel glances away, keeping an easy pace beside Dean. There’s a pause; his eyes seek Benny out fifteen yards ahead, a broad figure stalking through the trees. He inhales, exhales; then: “I don’t know.”

Dean looks over at Cas, studying the smooth planes of his face, the coffee-coloured beard that creeps over the line of his jaw, the fullness of his mouth. In that moment, he is reminded of startlingly of Jesus. “I’m sorry, Cas. I wasn’t there for you when you needed me most.” Dean laughs bitterly. “I can add that to the long list of things I shouldn’t forgive myself for.”

Benny disappears from view for a moment, reappearing in a flash of black coat. A river runs steadily somewhere to their left. It is silent, aside from the steady rhythm of their combined breathing and the sound of flowing water. The stillness of the air is almost oppressive.

“Why shouldn’t you forgive yourself, Dean? Surely you’re not beyond redemption,” Cas says quietly. He pauses, as if choosing his next words carefully. “Sometimes, when people have inaccurate perceptions of themselves, others wish that they could show the person how they’re actually perceived in the world. How much they’re actually loved. Similarly, I wish I could show you your soul.”

“What?” Dean exclaims, and Cas sighs.

“Your soul is so bright, Dean. It’s incredible. Like a small sun.”

“Huh,” Dean says, both confused and surprised. “I don’t know what to make of that.”

“Accept it,” Cas replies softly.

Dean has the impulse, then, to grasp Cas’s hand in his. He doesn’t though. Instead he pinches the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger and massages gently. “I’m tryin’, Cas. I’ve started.” Dean doesn’t add _because of you - because I want to be_ worthy _of you_ out loud. “But if I’m not beyond redemption, you can’t be, either.”

Cas remains silent.

“How are you feeling? Really,” Dean tries again, an echo of a future conversation they’ll have on a motel bed in Oklahoma weeks from now. “And don’t try and bring it back to me, or reply with a snarky retort.”

Cas grins at this, looking back across at Dean, who responds with a small smile of his own. They’ve stopped walking.

“There’s only one thing I’m sure of now,” Cas says, holding Dean’s gaze. “And that’s-“

“Leviathan!” Benny yells, interrupting the exchange, stumbling towards Dean and Cas from between the trees. The two flinch, breaking apart like guilty teenagers caught in the act of doing something illicit. Dean quickly draws his axe, whispering to Cas “We’ll talk later, okay” and squeezing his shoulder.

Leviathan materialise; Dean lunges forward and sinks the blade in to the first one he can reach.

Dean and Cas never do get the chance to continue their conversation. The next day, early in the morning, they find the portal.

The rest is history.

**Author's Note:**

> Dean's voice in this is more poetic than I'd usually write it, but I thought it sort of fit maybe? I don't know, I guess I just have a lot of feelings about how Dean and Cas and Benny's time was represented in Purgatory in the show. I don't believe that Dean would have waited until after they left to talk to Cas for the first time about Cas's problems. Then again, I don't even fucking know what they ate while there, or if they even needed to eat (I had a debate with a friend over this), and it makes me angry and upset. Dean clearly delt with a lot of his personal stuff while there, because look at the progression in character now, and I'm disappointed that we didn't get to see it happen. And thank you so much to cliffnotesofanerd on tumblr for beta-ing this for me and being generally awesome!


End file.
